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It’s Ear Infection Time!

This holiday season was full of colds over here. It seemed like the same cold got passed around for weeks until we were all hit. Yes folks, even though we eat well, my family can still get sick. What may be different is how we deal with things once we get sick.

After one of those fun weeks of runny noses, we noticed our five-year-old saying “What? what?” often when we talked to him. Some of that is just the normal behavior of a distracted five-year-old, but after about a week we began to think something was going on with his hearing. After some simple at home hearing challenges (i.e., making tiny sounds outside each ear) we realized that his right ear just wasn’t hearing well. Into the doctor’s office we went, the day before we left for the holidays.

As anticipated, they found fluid, redness, and puss: an ear infection. Although the doctor recommended an antibiotic, I kindly asked her if it was really necessary. My children have never been on antibiotics, and I’d like to keep it that way. Antibiotics do harm to the good bacteria in your body along with any bacterial infection, and as a result weaken the immune system, making it less able to fight off infections down the road, including additional ear infections.

Our lovely doctor replied that antibiotics weren’t absolutely necessary because my son wasn’t in any pain and had no fever. His body seemed to be handling the infection ok, so she was happy to let us ride it out and see what happened, as long as we brought him back in a week or so to see how the infection was doing. It pays to always ask questions!

To be proactive over the holiday, I started loading him up on some super foods to ensure his immune system kicked this before we went back in to see the Dr. Here’s what he had on a daily basis:

2 drops of garlic mullein oil in the ear, 2x per day

A spoonful of chopped raw garlic with honey

At least 1 cup of bone broth, often cooked into food such as quinoa/lentils/soup/oatmeal

2 tablespoons of coconut oil, always in/on food

Oregano & Theives essential oil combination, rolled on the bottom of the feet

1 spoonful of cod liver oil (this is part of his daily routine anyway)

He’s just back from the doctor’s visit, and his ear is greatly improved. His little body is fighting the infection, his runny nose is gone, and we’re free of antibiotics! Here’s to the power of food and some simple remedies to give a body the fuel it needs to heal itself! Way to go, little guy!